1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to vehicle information systems and, in particular, to a system and method for maintaining vehicle status information and of automatically and efficiently providing this information to users after communication is established with the users.
2. Related Art
Presently, it is possible for users to call a central processing station to obtain information on the status of a vehicle of interest. For example, it is possible for a user to call an airline or a bus depot and find out whether an airplane or bus is on or off schedule. In some situations a human operator at the processing station (e.g., the airline or bus depot) receives the call from the user who asks the operator for information regarding the status of a particular vehicle. The operator then looks up the status of the vehicle from a chart or database and provides the user with the requested information.
In other situations, the status information is automatically provided to the user after the user has submitted a status information request, thereby eliminating the need of human interaction at the processing station. For example, once communication with a communications device at the processing station is established, a computer at the processing station may prompt the user to identify which vehicle the user is interested in. The user may enter a vehicle identifier, such as an airplane number or bus number, for example, via touch-tone signaling or other suitable technique for interfacing information with computer systems. The computer then automatically retrieves information pertaining to the status of the vehicle identified by the user""s inputs and provides this information to the user.
Having to provide either the operator or the computer with information identifying which vehicle is of interest to the user is timing consuming and burdensome. It would be desirable for the processing station to automatically provide the user with status information on a particular vehicle without the user having to provide a vehicle identifier.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry for providing a system and method of maintaining vehicle status information and of automatically and efficiently providing users with this information.
The present invention overcomes the inadequacies and deficiencies of the prior art as discussed hereinbefore. Generally, the present invention provides a system and method for automatically providing a user with vehicle status information related to a particular vehicle or a particular set of vehicles.
In architecture, the system of the present invention utilizes a database, a communication interface, and a system manager. The database stores status information associated with a vehicle, and the communication interface is designed to communicate with communication devices remotely located from the system. The system manager receives a message transmitted from the vehicle and updates the status information stored in the database based on the received message. When a remote communication device establishes communication with the communication interface, the communication interface receives caller identification information automatically transmitted to the communication interface. The system manager analyzes this caller identification information and automatically retrieves status information from the database based on the caller identification information. The system manager then transmits, via the communication interface, the retrieved status information to the remote communication device.
The present invention can also be viewed as providing a method for monitoring and reporting status of vehicles. The method can be broadly conceptualized by the following steps: maintaining status information associated with a vehicle; communicating with a remote communication device; receiving caller identification information automatically transmitted in the communicating step; and automatically retrieving and transmitting the status information based on the caller identification information.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to one skilled in the art upon examination of the following detailed description, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. It is intended that all such features and advantages be included herein within the scope of the present invention and protected by the claims.